This morning I texted Colby and asked him if he had received the box I sent him last week.  He texted back an affirmative and we sent a few more texts back and forth.  All of a sudden my usually docile and co-operative phone went crazy.  It sent Colby a couple of random undecipherable texts and bounced back and forth between various things I had not clicked on.  Finally I managed to turn the phone off.  When I turned the phone back on I didn’t notice that it had turned the airplane mode on.

Brett and I had a couple of errands we wanted to run this morning so he asked me to text him when Aspen and I were ready to go.  About mid-morning I texted him not realizing he didn’t receive it because of the air plane mode.  I didn’t hear back from him, but I knew he was busy preparing for a barn party this weekend.  About an hour later he came home and asked if my phone was turned off because he had tried to call and text and I hadn’t responded.  I checked my phone, saw it was in airplane mode and turned it off.  Immediately he received my text and I received his message.

How many times do I not hear what God has to say to me because I am in my own personal airplane mode.  Unwilling and seemingly unable to receive messages from God because of my self-absorption and unwillingness to turn myself off.  If I live a self-absorbed life I don’t think about God as able to help me, willing to walk with me and talk with me.  I just think about how I am going to do everything.  I become like the phone on airplane mode, an entity unto self, unable to send or receive messages to and from God.

In Psalm 51 David prayed a prayer I should consider praying more often.  First he asks God to create in him a pure heart.  David realizes that only God can create a pure heart, he can not do it himself.  Next he asks God to renew a steadfast spirit within him.  He wants to continually live with God in his purified heart, not constantly go back and forth and up and down in his relationship with God.  Finally he asks for a willing spirit.  Willing for what?  Whatever God wants to say or do in his life.  A willing heart, the switch that brings us out of “airplane mode” and into action.

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.  Psalm 51:17